THE BEAUTIFUL TRADE (1) EXCHANGE BOTTOM LINE: JESUS IS NOT ASKING TO BE AN ADDITION TO YOUR LIFE; HE IS ASKING TO BE YOUR LIFE. INTRODUCTION Have you ever had to do research for a class paper? Sometimes you start out with your topic thinking that you know exactly what you are going to write about. But then, after you start reading some books and digging into the research, you realize that you actually know WONDER. very little about the topic and have to start from scratch and just DISCOVERY. learn. You have to trade what you think you know for what you don’t. PASSION. And it’s the same when it comes to following Jesus. Sometimes we WWW.WHATISORANGE.ORG/ have to trade what we think we know—about Jesus, about what XP3STUDENTS is best for us, about what we think about others—in order to fully participate with God in what we don’t know. CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jared Herd XP3 STUDENTS TEAM Tim Walker Sarah Anderson Jaime Handley CONTRIBUTORS Mark Brown Laura Whelan CREATIVE COORDINATOR Steve Underwood GRAPHICS/VIDEO Nathan Boyd USER AGREEMENT ORANGE SPECIALISTS The reThink Group, Inc. gladly grants permission to churches, schools Kristie McCollister and other licensees to tailor XP3TM materials to fit their unique leadership Jeremy Zach requirements, locale and format preferences. However, if you wish to edit the content substantively, including teaching scripts, small group dialog and any TECHNICAL & WEB SUPPORT other content in which biblical principles and concepts are presented, you Hadley Brandt are obligated to do so within the doctrinal guidelines we’ve expressed in our Alex VanRossum Statement of Faith (see page 2). CHIEF EXECUTIVE These resources are intended to be downloaded and printed for use by the OFFICER subscribing entity only and may not be electronically transferred to or duplicated Reggie Joiner by other non-subscribing entities. Any unauthorized reproduction of this material or incorporation into a new work—including podcasts or video of this content—is CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER a direct violation of U.S. copyright laws. ©2011 The reThink Group, Inc. All rights Reggie Goodin reserved. XP3 and the XP3 logo are trademarks of The reThink Group, Inc. www.whatisorange.org/xp3students ©2011 The reThink Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved STATEMENT OF FAITH ABOUT GOD God is the one and only true God, yet He exists in three persons: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. God is the Creator, so everything belongs to Him and is under His control. God is holy, so He is righteous, majestic and loving. God is all knowing and purposeful, so He’s at work to bring about His will. No person, thing or idea compares to God. ABOUT THE SCRIPTURES God reveals Himself to us through the Bible, and it is 100% accurate, reliable and authoritative. ABOUT PEOPLE People are made in God’s image and for His pleasure. But everybody falls short of God’s intention, or ideal, for people. In other words, everyone has sinned. As a result, we are all separated from Him, even though He wants an intimate relationship with each of us. ABOUT SALVATION That’s why Jesus, God’s Son, came and lived on this earth, died and rose again. God offers His free gift of salvation to all who believe in Jesus and accept Him as Savior, the only way to be forgiven and reconciled to God. Anyone who accepts this gift is adopted as a son or daughter into God’s family and will live with Him forever in heaven. Scripture marked “NIV” is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. www.whatisorange.org/xp3students ©2011 The reThink Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved CREATING THE ENVIRONMENT We believe that the set, stage, music and everything in your room communicates a message—without you saying a word. That’s why we put together a list of production ideas to help you set the stage for the session and the series. From the music you play when students come in the room to the worship set your band plays, we want to make sure that your room conveys “The Beautiful Trade” in a multi-sensory way. There is a downloadable checklist available in your series downloads that will give you all the elements for this session (and the entire series). BACKGROUND PLAYLIST FOR THE BEAUTIFUL TRADE SERIES “Meant to Live” by Switchfoot (from The Beautiful Letdown) “Light Up the Sky” by The Afters (from Light Up the Sky) “Love Is Here” by Tenth Avenue North (from Over and Underneath) “Say (All I Need)” by OneRepublic (from Dreaming Out Loud) “Magnificent” by U2 (from No Line on the Horizon) “End of the World” by Blake Lewis (from Audio Day Dream) “True Love” by Phil Wickham (from Cannons) “Born Again” by Newsboys (from Born Again) “Control” by Mute Math (from Mute Math) “Your Love” by Brandon Heath (from Leaving Eden) “Take You Back” by Jeremy Camp (from Restored) “Two Princes” by Spin Doctors (from Pocket Full of Kryptonite) WORSHIP PLAYLIST FOR THE BEAUTIFUL TRADE SESSION 1 “No One Like You” by David Crowder (from Illuminate) “Glorious One” by Fee (from We Shine) “Come To Me” by Aaron Shust (from Whispered and Shouted) “All I Can Do Is Surrender” by Mark Roach (from Every Reason Why) THE SET As the backdrop to your stage/set, arrange three doors with frames so they are freestanding. You can keep this very minimalistic and create a “door” using PVC pipe and curtains, or you could find actual doors from a building supply or salvage shop. Using either construction paper or store-bought, precut letters, post the words exchange, swap and switch on each of the three doors. Then, either on a poster or with precut letters, write the phrase “What are you willing to . ?” across the top of all three doors. SERIES ART Art for PowerPoint backgrounds and for series promotional ads is available as a free download with every series. Visit the XP3 website, log on to your account and download the images to use in your presentation, newsletters and website. VIDEO A video bumper is available for The Beautiful Trade series and was created to be used as an intro for all three sessions of The Beautiful Trade series. You can purchase the video by logging into your XP3 account and clicking on the “XP3 videos” link. www.whatisorange.org/xp3students ©2011 The reThink Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved MIDDLE SCHOOL ADAPTATION The following activities and illustrations will help middle school students connect with the subject matter in ways that engage them physically, mentally, socially and sometimes emotionally. You can also adapt The Beautiful Trade series for middle school students by using the teaching outline found in this document to edit the teaching script to a 20-minute presentation. In addition, by using the separate middle school small group dialog questions (found in the series downloads) that are geared specifically for 6th-8th graders, you can make each section more middle school friendly. SESSION 1 GAME: BUZZWORDS (Play this game as an icebreaker to Session 1.) When we hear certain words or phrases, they make us think of particular items, people or places. In this game, students will try to get their partner across the floor the fastest by trying to get them to guess the “buzzword.” Have your students pair off with each partner standing on opposite ends of the room, so that you have a row of students on one side of the room and a row on the other side. The rows should be facing each other with about 10 feet between them. Choose one row of students to be the askers and the other to be the answerers. The askers will each be given a piece of paper containing a list of words. [Note to communicator: Make sure that each paper has different words so that students don’t “cheat” by listening to other pairs. The more students you have, the more sheets you will have to make up.] When you tell students to begin, the askers will try to get the answerers to guess the words on the paper by using buzzwords, or words that are associated with the word on the paper, but they MAY NOT say the word on the paper. If they do say the word, their partner must take a step back. When the answerer gets the word right, they get to take a step towards their partner. [Note to communicator: If you have volunteers available, have a volunteer stand behind each asker to make sure they aren’t saying the word on the paper.] The first pair to get their answerer across to their teammate wins! As a fun prize, you can award Mad Libs or crossword puzzle books to the winning team. SESSION 1 ILLUSTRATION: THE KINGDOM OF GOD (Use this illustration after the last paragraph of teaching point “D” in the Truth section of the teaching script.) So often when we think of the kingdom of God, we think of heaven and angels, or we think of Mother Teresa helping orphans in Calcutta. [Note to communicator: Here are some examples of images of “The Kingdom of God” but feel free to go online and do a search using key words like kingdom and heaven to find alternate images.] http://www.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=kingdom+of+God&oe=UTF- 8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1061&bih=731 http://www.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=Mother+Teresa&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF- 8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1061&bih=731 But what does the kingdom of God look like in your life? What does the kingdom of God look like in the life of a normal middle school student in your neighborhood or at your school? Maybe it looks more like this: (continued on next page) www.whatisorange.org/xp3students ©2011 The reThink Group, Inc.